Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Picture messaging from Safaricom

It’s been a long progression with Safaricom and picture messaging. Started out as a product for post-paid subscribers, and then was made available to pre-paid subscribers at 20 shillings each. It’s now been lowered again to a relatively affordable 5/= ($0.09) which is the same as a regular short text message (SMS)

Safaricom gets flack for its customer service especially for new offerings, but this ones seems to work well. Here are some old pictures sitting in my phone;


Military tank at Athi River railway station: (probably Ugandan-Army bound for Somalia peace-keeping)



Crocodile at Haller Park (Bamburi)

(However, during the daytime, most messages are relegated to a queues and don’t get delivered. Will try it again at night to load more from the phone archives

Safaricom Day 13
Deals 6,276 Turnover Kshs. 519.7 million [$8.12 million] Average 7.58 Closing 7.55 High 7.70 Low price 7.40 Last 7.40 Volume 68.5 million shares. Follow on selling, from yesterday. Sellers tipped their hands. Commentary and data from Rich.co.ke [N.S.E Authorised Data Vendor]

Dear Nairobi Star
Following in M’s footsteps:

To: Nairobi Star
Star life column on June 23
From: Bankelele

I read the Monday Nairobi Star (June 23 2008) which had the popular cost –saving ideas/feature piece.

However I was dismayed to note that the 'free stuff in Nairobi' in 'Star Life' column in the middle pages was lifted word-for-word and point-for-point from a blog post I did two weeks ago.

The Nairobi Star should acknowledge works that you use, and not pass it off as your own

Regards,
Bankelele (http://bankelele.blogspot.com)

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Banks!

Thats shameful....sue them....

eating from someone sweat...disgusting

Shame on Nairobi Star

Unknown said...

Hey Banks, how about a bubble burster post?

Example - do Equity Bank fundamentals and growth prospects cover a P/E Ratio above 40?

If I was a Buyer, I would avoid buying a stock when there are clear signs of a bubble.

If I was a seller, I would stifle my greed and exit quick, with a plan to get back in later after the impending correction.

But, alas, I am neither... so I will just sit back and enjoy the show.

:-)

Unknown said...

Is it any better if someone told you that "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery?" Anyway shame on Nairobi Star this does nothing to improve my opinion on the quality of journalism in Kenya, I once read a review in a leading daily lifted word for word from Wikipedia!

Anonymous said...

Hey Banks, every cloud has a silver lining... this is an opportunity to make ridiculous amounts of money!

Kenyan copyright laws are very lucrative, you can actually sue the guys for copyright infringemenet and get cash for damages.

Talk to your lawyer ASAP!

The offending Media house will try get an out-of-court settlement in this blatant case of plagiarism. Accept if they do (no need to waste your money on lawyers).

Gitts said...

True they should give credit to you for the post!

@kirima- everybody uses wikipedia if you knew how many assignments in campus are lifted from there.

Anonymous said...

On Safaricom picture messaging, how the charges went from Ksh.20 to Ksh.5 per message in the light that nothing actually changed in terms of cost of delivering the service can only be seen as the utter lack of any relationship between tariffs and the cost of providing a service. A short termist farce in pursuit of unfair uber profits.

Anonymous said...

@ Maishinski:
Buy buy buy equity. It doesn;t make sense but such is this market... personally I'm so profiting from it! take advantage of our ignorant masses!

@ Kirima:
kwani the paper in question doesn't have a name? Why do y'all like saying "a certain ...".!?

@ Banks:
Boss, payday done come early... get a professional to act on your behalf, get a lawyer!
*** Shameless plug: My dad is in the biz... just say the word and I'll hook you up :)***

That said, yes yes yes, they must pay... either KSHS or in kind. How about your ad in their paper for 1 month, financial pages, 3 days a week?

bankelele said...

RO and Sahito: not worth it, no point in suing. Maybe just letting them know they have been nabbed will make them desist

Maishinski: Didn’t get in on Equity before it listed because I had too many questions about the unknown and the eventual valuation. It has performed better than any stock, but am not in it

Kirima: I should feel good that, someone thought it was worth repeating, but some credit would not have cost anything. They have some good columns (parliament, Carol Mutoko, Rich) but I notice many articles there are things I previously read on the internet

Gitts: wikipedia too. I use wikipedia for research, so I should not be surprised that student also use it

Gathunuku: I suppose now that they have worked out the kinks (you can seamlessly install the settings), they are now ready to roll it out to their millions of late subscribers. I expect that it will become a great success and that some corporate or agencies will ban camera phones

coldtusker said...

Pole... but u know my take on Kenyan newspapers!

Unknown said...

@ Anon #2 There is only one "Leading daily" in Kenya!

Anonymous said...

Banks, Sue the bastards.

Otherwise we will sue you for negligence - because we also contributed to the article.

We want our chumes chap! chap!

(just kiddin)

:-)

Seriously, I would sue if I had a strong case. The mere prospect of litigation would make these guys bend over backwards to pay you!

you are an investor Banks, INVEST in the law!

Unknown said...

Banks, remember the US Dot.com era? Emotions and sentiment was the order of the day.

I believe not getting into Equity was a actually smart move - because:

1. The share could have easily swung either way (more about this - see below).

2. Equity may be aggressive - but it does expose itself to additional risks by pursuing rapid growth strategies.

3. There is a high likelihood that NSE is not 100% transparent. There have been allegations that brokers in collusion with corporate insiders (acting as so-called "market makers") manipulate stocks to create demand and trick common investors to buy worthless (remember Uchumi?)or overpriced paper.

Sooner or later, some bad news will come from the company and the bubble will burst! At that point the market makers will have offloaded all their shares to innocent wananchi. The stocks will plummet and when they hit rock bottom the same unscrupulous "market makers" will buy back the shares at fair value - and then divide and pocket their ill-gotten profits.

Small caps (i.e. most NSE counters) are extremely vulnerable to this unfair game. Any laws in Kenya to prevent that? I doubt it.

Dont forget your neighborhood rogue investor who balantly flouts the law with impunity.

I would rather be the "player" in a fair market - than be the "pawn" in a dubious market.

So far, I think Safcom is the safest bet for an investor. Benefits are twofold:

1. If the price falls, you accumulate. So far, fundamentals are unshakeable (and MJ is still in there doing his magic).

2. If the price rises, you hold your position.

Furthermore, its incredibly difficult for unscrupulous individuals to manipulate the safcom share for shorting purposes.

Warren Buffet bypassed tech stocks during the dot.com boom coz the numbers just didn't add up. He got rich by being Patient and rational.

arachesostufo said...

auguro un futuro migliore al Kenya e ai suoi abitanti.
la democrazia prima o poi dovrà regnare. ciao

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